Facebook, Friendster Offer Free Classifieds

Move over, Craig. Facebook on Friday said it would add free classified ad-listings to its popular social networking site. The new service, dubbed Marketplace, poses a potential threat to a number of companies--from Craigslist and newspapers to Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com. Also on Friday, Friendster announced that it had added classifieds through a partnership with Olx.com.

Marketplace will allow Facebook's some 22 million active users to create classified listings in four categories: housing, jobs, for sale, and "other." Users will be able to limit the exposure of their classifieds to individual networks such as immediate friends and coworkers.

Facebook has chosen classified search engine Oodle, which already has the ability to categorize classifieds by such categories as specific colleges, to power the new service.

Analysts saw the move as a clear win for Facebook, and expressed confusion as to why it took the startup so long.

"The expansion of classifieds has been going on since at least 2003, so I don't know why Facebook is so late to the game," said John Zappe, an analyst with consultancy Classified Intelligence.

MySpace has offered a classified ads service almost since its inception--but according to Zappe, the MySpace community is not nearly as well-suited to classified transactions as Facebook's.

"This plays to Facebook's strength as a tight community where people already have a shared commonality, whether they went to the same school or work at the same company," Zappe said.

Facebook users can also include listings on their profile pages, and send them to friends as "news feeds."

Launched in 2004, Facebook is now the sixth-most-visited U.S. Web site, according to comScore. The site is expected to generate $125 million in revenue this year, according to new estimates by eMarketer.

By contrast, MySpace, still the most popular social network by far, is estimated to generate $525 million. Combined, MySpace and Facebook will account for 72% of U.S. social network ad spending in 2007 and an ever greater 75% in 2008, according to eMarketer.

Friendster, which boasts of 40 million members and says it is the world's 18th-largest Web property, has divided its listings into such categories as jobs, for sale, services, vehicles, real estate, personals, community, classes and resumes.

On Friday, Friendster had already added a "classified" link at the top of its pages.

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